


Detente

by Katiejhawk



Category: Sanditon (TV 2019), Sanditon - Jane Austen
Genre: Canon Compliant, Challenge Response, F/M, Gap Filler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:35:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29838891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katiejhawk/pseuds/Katiejhawk
Summary: What happened directly after Mrs. Maudsley’s rout? A substantial conversation.
Relationships: Charlotte Heywood & Sidney Parker, Charlotte Heywood/Sidney Parker
Comments: 39
Kudos: 158





	Detente

**Author's Note:**

> Diana Smith Keddie issued a challenge on Facebook seeking an extra scene between Charlotte and Sidney after the ball in London. “Perhaps a late night run in at Bedford Place? Or the morning after?” And she included a beautiful image as inspiration. I haven’t figured out how to include it, so here’s the link to the Facebook post. https://www.facebook.com/groups/409016509999241/permalink/767618647472357/
> 
> Special thanks to @rebeccalj1599 for being a terrific sounding board. Your suggestions were very helpful! ❤️

Sidney Parker wondered why Miss Heywood had left the rout at Mrs. Maudsley’s without a word and unescorted. As he listened to his brother Tom blather on about Eliza Campion during the carriage ride home to Bedford Place, he was beginning to think he understood.

“Oh, yes, I told Charlotte you were like a new man after having seen dear Eliza,” Tom said. “‘Positively revivified’ were my precise words. In fact, Charlotte, too, seemed to have recovered her spirits after your dance. Perhaps she was happy for you when I told her that you and Eliza might find happiness together after all. After that, I did not see where she got off to.”

Sidney groaned inwardly. Tom had entirely mischaracterized the situation to Miss Heywood. As happy as he was initially to see Mrs. Campion, it had been Miss Heywood who had “revivified” him. He had felt lighter than he had in years while moving with her around the dance floor.

Goodness knows, if anyone had been paying attention to them, they would have seen how inappropriately close he held her, how he had held her palm against his. That was when he had begun to awaken to the fact that he was enamored with Miss Heywood. Was that putting it mildly?

“It was positively serendipitous that you were able to renew your acquaintance with dear Eliza,” Tom droned on. “What an inspired idea you had to invite her to the regatta!”

Sidney’s eyes widened. “I did not invite Mrs. Campion. You did,” Sidney replied.

Tom went on as if Sidney had not spoken. He shook his head at Tom’s fantastical ability to reshape a story so that it does not resemble the truth and then sell himself on it.

Sidney tuned him out. Tom would be more than content to speak just to hear the sound of his own voice. Meanwhile, Sidney had more important things to consider.

Like how Miss Heywood had disarmed him without his taking notice. And how this spitfire of a woman felt about him.

During their dance, it had felt like he was connecting with her on a cellular level. What had Tom said? That Miss Heywood mood seemed lifted after their dance? It gave him some hope that she too felt the connection.

Well, there was nothing for it. He was going to have to talk to her, but he would have to be subtle because he did not want to frighten her with the apparent suddenness of his changed affections. Miss Heywood may be direct, but she had confirmed her naïveté when it came to romantic feelings. Love.

Love? Is this where his mind had led him? No doubt Mrs. Campion’s appearance this evening had conjured this notion and muddled his mind. Not because he still loved her but because he once had. Or believed he had. Did he truly ever love her, or was it an inexperienced young man’s fancy?

When Sidney compared what he once felt to his burgeoning feelings for Miss Heywood, they did not align. However, he was all too familiar with the flightiness of young women and had no desire to be at such whims again. He could feel in his bones this was different, but he was not certain he should label it yet or breathe life into a feeling he had sworn off long ago.

His reverie was interrupted by their arrival at Bedford Place. Tom was still carrying on a one-sided conversation. Sidney had often marveled at how very different he was from both his brothers, but those differences had never been as stark to him as they had since his return from Antigua. Sidney often preferred silence, while especially Tom endeavored to fill the air.

He found himself exhausted by Tom’s efforts and wondering whether Miss Heywood would still be awake. Sidney, thinking it was unlikely but hoping nonetheless, begged off of having a drink with Tom and sought her out.

It did not take long to find her and lose his breath. Sidney felt everything inside him shift at the rare sight: Miss Heywood at rest. She had fallen asleep curled up in the chair he had found her in earlier when he hoped to persuade her to attend the rout. She was still wearing the golden dress she had borrowed from Babington’s sister, but she had released her hair from its elaborate style. Completing the look was an open book resting on her leg.

Sidney strode over and knelt before her. He knew what he was about to do next was not proper, but what did propriety matter after spending all night alone with her in a carriage during the search for Georgiana? Truth be told, he had hardly been a model of propriety from the moment he met her.

He reached up to brush away the chestnut waves that had fallen across her face and gently swept his thumb across her cheek. “Charlotte,” he whispered, daring to use her Christian name as he withdrew his hand.

Eyes still closed, she smiled and replied, “Sidney.”

In that moment between her sleep and wakefulness, he knew he was lost. And she had no idea. She probably was not even aware she had used his Christian name for the first time in his presence.

Miss Heywood startled herself the rest of the way awake, losing her grip on the book in her lap. Sidney caught it as it slid, taking note of the title, _The Symposium_ , by Plato. He smiled broadly, for he could not think of a more perfect book for her to have chosen in that moment.

Sidney set the book down next to her hair clips on the nearby table and returned his gaze to her. Her slight blush told him she was embarrassed by being caught out, and her expression told him she was working to solve a problem. The crease on her forehead, the one he can now admit he has wanted to smooth countless times, was the telltale sign.

“What time is it, Mr. Parker,” she said, now fully awake, and he instantly felt regret over her use of his formal name.

“It is well after midnight, Miss Heywood,” Sidney replied. “You have had a sleepless few nights and should take some rest since Tom plans to escort you and Georgiana back to Sanditon tomorrow.”

He hated this plan, but Tom could not be dissuaded from returning to Sanditon nor from his insistence that Sidney remain in London to promote the regatta. As Sidney had also promised to help Tom pay his workers, it meant he must rearrange some of his investments so he could free up more funds. And it would be wholly inappropriate for the ladies to remain with him.

“Mr. Parker,” Miss Heywood said, regaining his attention. “I feel quite rested from my sleep just now. I would like to talk, if you do not mind. I think it will help me sort the events of the past few days.”

Sidney did not have it in him to decline, so he rose to his feet and sat down nearby. “Is there anything in particular that is weighing on you?”

“Well, so many things I have said to you usually seemed to fall on deaf ears, yet in the past day or so, I have heard you repeat these words to or about others. How have you come to a place of valuing my opinions?”

Leave it to Miss Heywood to ask a challenging and perceptive question right at the start. “As I said earlier, I underestimated you. It is something I profoundly regret. My experience in life has taught me to trust very few, and young women do not make the cut.”

“Why is that?” she asked. “And why do I appear to have earned such a place of honor? I have hardly been a model of trustworthiness lately. I hardly recognize myself.”

Sidney smiled. “I daresay we both have not been at our best, at least in each other’s presence. But I will take ownership of that as I am the real reason we got off on the wrong foot. Why that is, I have no idea.”

He did have an idea, actually, but not one he was willing to admit yet. Sidney sensed right from the start the very real danger she presented, the now-welcome trap he could fall into. She had drawn him in without trying and there she sat, without the knowledge of having done so. He laughed inwardly at the futility of his fight.

“But that does not answer my question,” Miss Heywood persisted.

“You think quickly on your feet and, if one looks objectively at the advice you offered or the admonishments you laid out, there is truth in all you said,” Sidney said. “As it turns out, Miss Heywood, you are wiser than your years and gender might indicate.”

From the looks of it, Miss Heywood might have needed to sit down were she not already seated. While she was speechless, Sidney decided to ask some questions of his own.

“Why did you leave the rout tonight without saying anything and how did you find your way back here?”

“I was tired and unable to find you,” Miss Heywood replied with a slight blush. Sidney suspected he was not getting the unvarnished truth, which was quite something for a woman who was honest almost to a fault. “My new friend, Susan, to whom I was speaking when you collected me for our dance, brought me here.”

At the mention of the dance, she blushed more deeply. Even in the dim candlelight, it did not go unnoticed.

As he took in the idea that she might have been as affected by their dance as he had been, Sidney also wondered whether he would ever stop being surprised by her resourcefulness and her ability to make friends nearly everywhere she goes.

“I see,” he replied, suddenly struck by the memory of Miss Heywood’s discomfort when her new acquaintance had said they had been discussing him. “That reminds me, you two looked as if you were having quite a conversation. Do you mind sharing what was so enthralling?”

He would not have thought it possible, but she turned such a bright shade of pink she practically glowed in the half-light. This gave him an inkling of the direction the conversation took.

“We were discussing you, as well as Tom, why we were there and how badly I was failing at my task of promoting the regatta,” she answered after a long pause.

He could tell that though there was truth in what she said, there was much more to it. He decided against pushing her for further details as he expected they would not be forthcoming.

Miss Heywood regained her usual color and ventured to ask another question. “Why did you leave so quickly after our dance?”

Clever woman, Sidney thought. She knew the answer, so the only way through this was honesty. He was a great many things, but he was no liar. Here was his chance to prove it to her.

“I saw my former fiancée for the first time in a decade,” he said, noting the slight flinch that marred Miss Heywood’s countenance. “I think the shock of it carried me in her direction. I was somehow that lovesick 18-year-old boy in that moment and could feel myself smiling like a lunatic.”

Sidney could tell Miss Heywood was deep in thought. “Once the surprise wore off, the hurt I thought I had long ago mastered flooded through me and it was all I could do to maintain polite conversation and make my escape.”

He glanced at her and did not see the pity he expected in her eyes. Instead he saw sadness. He saw someone kind who struggled to understand how one human being could, with capriciousness, break the heart of another.

That was her magic: empathy. It was what put so many at ease with her, what drew people to her.

Miss Heywood looked to be wrestling with something, but before Sidney could say anything to put her at ease, she spoke.

“I am afraid I was once on the giving end of heartbreak,” she said as Sidney’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Rest easy. I did not break an engagement. For the record, those were not just words I spoke at Lady Denham’s luncheon. They’re my conviction. I would rather make my way in the world somehow than marry for anything less than love.”

At that, she searched his face. Sidney did not know what she hoped to see. Understanding? Acknowledgment? Acceptance? He was not sure whether she found what she wished, but she continued her story.

“I believe you know by now that I am not easily ... managed,” Miss Heywood said. They both laughed at this. “I was once pursued by a young man in Willingden. He was not appealing to me in the slightest, precisely because he wished to manage me. Narrow of mind, no interest in widening it. But he was quite besotted.”

Sidney could well imagine. In fact, he felt something akin to jealousy though it was clear this man was not in the running for her heart. The question remains: Was he himself in the running?

“I do not say this to be boastful,” Miss Heywood continued.

“Of course not,” Sidney replied. “You are a great many things. A braggart is not one of them.”

“I’ll be direct ...”

He interrupted. “When are you not?”

She smiled lightly and forged ahead. “My father’s estate does quite well. I am apprised of the state of his finances as I have helped him keep his books. But as you can well imagine, with so many children, careful attention must be paid. I am well aware of the burden I pose by remaining unmarried. This suitor, who was fairly well off, would have eased that burden on my father.”

Sidney could see the guilt cross her face as she paused. It was plain from her words that she was more aggrieved by concerns for her family than the young man’s heart, though she did not seem to take that lightly either.

“But I will be eternally grateful that my father, my family, values love over any material comfort,” Miss Heywood continued. “I just could not abide being stifled, intellectually or by convention. The mere thought makes me feel claustrophobic.”

She once again searched his face, and he tried to keep his expression open. Miss Heywood may have been wary of what he might be thinking, but she needn’t have been. He believed he finally understood her.

“You, too, are an outlier,” Sidney finally said.

He could see she felt relieved at being understood rather than condemned, and he immediately felt the weight of his guilt, for he was the one who caused that self-doubt and created an expectation of censure. He sought to remedy that.

“I can see I have surprised you,” Sidney began. “Once again, I feel I owe you an apology. Not only have I underestimated you, but my own unfounded assumptions and criticisms have also led you to doubt yourself and expect my ridicule. For that, I deeply apologize and humbly beg your forgiveness.”

Miss Heywood openly gaped at him. Now that Sidney had once again rendered her speechless, he thought it might be time to lay a card or two on the table.

“Sometimes I wish that I could go back and change the way I have behaved toward you and make a better impression on you,” Sidney said, his warm brown eyes shining. “But then we would not be here in this moment with our hard-fought understanding of each other. I might not have come to admire you in quite the same way as I have. And I so greatly admire you.”

There. He had done it. He had admitted to admiration but had declared no intent. That must wait until he is able to ascertain her interest in him. He cannot, will not, expose his heart as he had a decade ago. Miss Heywood must indicate that she would welcome more than his admiration.

Miss Heywood finally found her voice. “Who are you, and what have you done with Mr. Parker?”

She laughed lightly, but it could not hide the surprise at his words. “I am quite certain I do not deserve all of that praise, but neither did I deserve many of your previous criticisms, so I will graciously accept your apology on one condition.”

He raised his eyebrows. “And what condition is that?”

“That you hear me out and consider accepting my own apology,” Miss Heywood replied. “From the very start, I was naïve in the expression of my opinions. I still stand by most of them, but I regret the way in which I conveyed them. I am used to being in the company of people who accept that I have opinions. They may not like or agree with them, but they hear them and know that it is just me being me. I should not have expected perfect strangers to understand that I, a mere woman, have opinions and that I mean no harm when I state them.”

She looked down at her hands, missing the soft look Sidney gave her.

“And once again, I have only my naïveté to blame for accepting Georgiana’s and Otis’ claims against you. I should have recognized that they each had their own grievances and motives and not been so quick to believe what they said. I am not sure I will ever forgive myself for that because it was what led me to help with their correspondence against your express wishes and with disastrous consequences.”

Sidney rose from his chair, intending to go to her, take her hands, comfort her. Instead, he went to pour himself some claret and offer her the same. She accepted.

“I cannot allow you to accept all the blame for Georgiana’s abduction,” he said with intensity. “By trying to absorb her anger and blame over my interference with Otis in a misguided attempt to protect her heart from additional pain, I imperiled her safety. While I was clear that they were not to see each other, the why was important and I should have conveyed that to her. Or to you when I asked you to watch out for her. You could not have been expected to know the risks to her safety.”

Miss Heywood took a sip of the claret he had handed her. “Nevertheless, I stepped in and went against your express wishes. For your ward. Your ward.” She broke off and this time nearly finished her drink, much to Sidney’s concern.

“I sincerely apologize for my actions and cruel words and hope that you can forgive me one day,” she rasped, looking down as a tear slipped onto her borrowed gown.

It took everything in Sidney to stay rooted. Because this time, he wanted to gather her in his arms. What a strange turn of events when a mere 24 hours ago they were at such loggerheads.

But Miss Heywood was not finished. “It is true that you have kept the world at arm’s length, and I now have a greater understanding of why. I have also seen how you have borne the unfair demands your brother has placed on you.” Seeing that Sidney was about to object, she held up a hand. “As much as I respect and admire what he is trying to do, he has allowed it to take over his life at the expense of his familial relationships and he has gotten in over his head financially. He asks you for help without admitting the full spectrum of problems and he lies to dear Mary, telling her all is well. You may not know this, but I have tried to help him organize his paperwork so, while I do not have a full picture of the problems, I have a sketch of them.”

She finished her drink and continued. “So you see, it was quite unfair of me to accuse you of reluctance when it comes to helping Tom. Both because he cannot help himself and because how can you help him when you do not know what he truly needs?”

While he had once chastised her for being so free with her opinions, he was now grateful she was. It made Sidney aware that he needed to press Tom as to the extent of his debts.

“What it comes down to, though, is this: You are a good man whom I have sorely misjudged,” Miss Heywood said, eyes bright with regret. “You care deeply but do your level best to hide it in order to protect yourself. Your loyalty and the lengths you go to protect those you love have shown me there is much to admire in you. And I do admire you.”

Her words moved Sidney and kept him mute. He felt understood in a way he had not known since his parents had died. If she had asked him for the moon in that moment, he would have gone to all extremes to get it for her.

“Well, Miss Heywood, how could I not accept such a heartfelt apology and offer my forgiveness when you include such kind words about my character?”

In truth, Sidney would always forgive her because of the hope she had just now given him. That maybe she could accept his feelings and return them. So before he could do anything stupid that might upset the delicate balance they had just achieved, he thought it best to end the night and dream of tomorrow.

“Now that we have reached the point of mutual admiration,” he smirked, “I think it is time to retire.”

He offered her a hand to help her stand, and she gratefully took it as she was tired and the claret had done her no favors.

“Thank you, Mr. Parker, for such an enlightening and cathartic conversation,” Miss Heywood said as they reached her room.

“You are quite welcome, and I thank you for the same,” he said. “Good night, Miss Heywood.”

“Pleasant dreams, Mr. Parker,” she said with a slight blush as she was closing her door.

For the first time in a long time, Sidney knew his dreams would indeed be pleasant. For he would dream of the future. He would dream of her.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies to Tom fans. I was not terribly kind to him here.
> 
> Description of Plato’s The Symposium: In the course of a lively drinking party, a group of Athenian intellectuals exchange views on eros, or desire. From their conversation emerges a series of subtle reflections on gender roles, sex in society and the sublimation of basic human instincts. The discussion culminates in a radical challenge to conventional views by Plato's mentor, Socrates, who advocates transcendence through spiritual love. The Symposium is a deft interweaving of different viewpoints and ideas about the nature of love — as a response to beauty, a cosmic force, a motive for social action and as a means of ethical education.


End file.
